Next Generation Maps in Power BI with Icon Map (with James Dales)

LIVESTREAM DATE/TIME 📅

May 1st, 2026 - 9:30AM (Pacific Time)

DESCRIPTION 📄

Power BI mapping has… historically been “fine” in the way a rental car with three warning lights is “fine.” In this session, James Dales (Microsoft Data Platform MVP, co-leader of the London Fabric & Power BI User Group, and creator of Icon Map) walks through what’s new in modern mapping for Power BI and why Icon Map has evolved into a premium visual.

We’ll cover:

• Why Icon Map is now paid and what it delivers over legacy Icon Map and Azure Maps

• Icon Map Pro vs Icon Map Slicer: what each one does and when to use them

• The Icon Map Catalog and how it changes map-building workflows in Power BI

• Best practices for building clearer, faster, more interactive geospatial reporting experiences

Whether you’re building operational dashboards, location intelligence reports, or real-time analytics, you’ll leave with practical guidance on how to level up your maps without making your report behave like a slideshow.

GUEST BIO 👤

Having previously led the Power BI and Microsoft Fabric capabilities at both UK and global level for a large multi-national Microsoft consultancy, in 2024 James co-founded an ambitious geospatial data company Tekantis, to focus on geospatial analytics and data products.

James is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and is the co-leader of the London Fabric and Power BI user group. In 2019 he became the first member of the Power BI Contributors Program, working alongside the Microsoft engineering team to build new functionality into the Power BI product codebase. He has a keen interest in geospatial and real-time analytics and is the author of the Icon Map visuals for Power BI.

RELATED CONTENT 🔗

Icon Map Website
Icon Map LinkedIn
Jame's LinkedIn

Power BI to Plotly: Build AI Dashboard Apps - with Adam Schroeder

LIVESTREAM DATE/TIME 📅

March 6th - 9:30 AM (Pacific Time)

DESCRIPTION 📄

You’ve already invested in a Power BI semantic model. Cool. Now let’s actually use it outside the walls of a closed BI environment. In this session, Adam Schroeder (Plotly) shows how Plotly Studio can connect directly to your existing Power BI semantic model so you can build polished, production-ready data apps, powered by Python and accelerated with AI, without rebuilding or migrating your data.

You’ll learn how to:

• Build fully customized, production-ready data apps using Python (beyond drag-and-drop limits)

• Distribute apps broadly without getting crushed by per-user viewer licensing costs

• Own your branding, UX, and deployment strategy end-to-end

• Take a practical step toward operationalizing trustworthy AI on top of governed data

If you’re hitting the ceiling on Power BI customization, navigating licensing-based scaling challenges, or looking for more control over how insights (and AI) reach users, this is your playbook.

GUEST BIO 👤

Adam Schroeder is a Senior Developer Advocate at Plotly. He has helped grow the community through 1:1 relationships, contributing to 6 million Dash downloads per month. He’s taught Plotly Dash for over five years on YouTube as @CharmingData (over 60,000 views/month) and co-authored “The Book of Dash.”

RELATED CONTENT 🔗

Plotly Studio

(Livestream Replay) Introducing EDITable - for Easy Master Data Entry into Power BI & Fabric - with Gopal

DESCRIPTION 📄

EDITable by Lumel is a no-code Live Write-Back Application that will allow business users to create and maintain their Master Tables and Flat Tables primarily used for Reporting and Planning Applications with full governance, audit, and approval workflow.

GUEST BIO 👤

Gopal Krishnamurthy is the Founder/CEO of Lumel. Lumel is Looking Forward to Disrupting Data & Analytics space with No Code Integrated Platform that will eliminate application silos caused by the diverse needs of business users (Reporting, Visualizations, Story Telling, Analysis (Drill-Down, Pivot), Planning, Simulations, Collaboration and Write-back).

RELATED CONTENT 🔗

Website
Blog
Buy Direct from Microsoft
LinkedIn

(Livestream Replay) Better Maps in Power BI with ICON MAP - with James Dales

DESCRIPTION 📄

Have you ever had requirements to do more with maps than you can achieve with the out of the box Power BI visuals? The Icon Map custom visual was created to fill these feature gaps, and enable more advanced capabilities, such as drawing images, lines and polygons on maps. James will walk us through demos showing the features and how to configure them.

GUEST BIO 👤

James Dales is the Global Capability Lead for Power BI at Avanade and is a Microsoft FastTrack Recognised Solution Architect. As a Microsoft Data Platform MVP he is the co-leader of the London Power BI user group. In 2019 he became the first member of the Power BI Contributors Program, working alongside the Microsoft engineering team to build new functionality into the product itself. He has a keen interest in spatial analytics and is the author of the Icon Map custom visual.

RELATED CONTENT 🔗

Icon Map
LinkedIn